Focusing on setup and development using SQL Server products from 2000 to 2008 and beyond. Also about anything geeky that compels me to write a blog entry.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Send Email in SQL 2008 Express

No Email functionality in SQL Express? No problem. This is a nice article on using CLR to send email in SQL 2008 Express.
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQL+Express+2008/71341/

Friday, April 23, 2010

Using Extended Properties for Documentation

This is a nice article on using extended properties to document your database. Much easier than maintaining a Word document.

Create a SQL Server Data Dictionary in Seconds using Extended Properties

Sunday, March 28, 2010

SQL Saturday Free Training

I just attended my first free SQL Saturday training day (#29 in Birmingham, AL) and it was an amazing day. The training was of the highest quality and as I went through the day with free coffee/soda and free lunch provided, I could not believe all of the value that was being provided for free. Of course it is not free, just free to we the trainees.

A big thank you to all the sponsors and the volunteers that made the day possible.

I want to encourage all of you reading this to go to the SQL Saturday website and find SQL Saturday's in your region. There were many people that I met in sessions who were from Tennessee and Georgia, and some had been to as many as three SQL Saturday's in different locations. It is worth a little driving time.

The hardest part was choosing which sessions to attend, since it was pretty common to have two or more sessions that I was interested in going at the same time. Here is the list that I finally went with.

Parallel Query Execution Dive Deep presented by Kevin Boles.
Database Design Patterns presented by Louis Davidson.
Tuna Helper for SQL Server DBAs presented by Janis Griffin.
Tricks & Tips for Writing Better Queries presented by Joe Webb.
SQL Server Locking and Blocking Made Simple presented by Joe Webb.

In each session, I already knew some of the material and I learned some new things, and most importantly gained some insight from people who approached problems from different angles. SQL Server is so robust, there are hundreds of ways to carve the turkey.

I hope if you have never attended SQL Saturday that you will make it a priority. All it costs you is one Saturday.